Dar felicitates PM, FBR for achieving revenue target of Rs 3104 bln

ISLAMABAD, July 1 (APP): Minister for Finance, Senator Muhammad
Ishaq Dar Friday felicitated Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for achieving a very difficult target
of Rs 3104 billion during financial year 2015-16, that ended on June 30.

He said unlike in the past, the government did not revise revenue target during the outgoing financial year which depicted the best performance of the government.

Talking to media at the PM Secretariat, Ishaq Dar said the revenue collection increased from Rs 1946 billion in 2013, when the present government took over, to Rs 3104 billion in 2015-16 thus showing a growth of 60 per cent in just three years.

“The second good news regarding the last day of outgoing financial year 2015-16, is that the foreign reserves of the country had also touched US $23 billion”, he added.

Giving break up figures of the Pakistan’s reserves position, he said that out of total $23 billion, these included approximately US $18 billion foreign reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) while the net foreign reserves held by commercial banks stood at around $ 4.9 billion.

He said with the increasing trend of foreign reserves in the country, it is hoped that the Pakistan’s debt would not further increase.

He hoped that the government’s internal debt would gradually reduce with increasing of foreign reserves.